


Dead and Lovely

by the_casual_cheesecake



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Asphyxiation, Blow Jobs, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Hallucinations, M/M, Murder, Podfic Available, Porn with Feelings, The Author Regrets Nothing, do not ask me what feelings they are, post-Battleworld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 11:31:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21196964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_casual_cheesecake/pseuds/the_casual_cheesecake
Summary: The problem with insanity is that it takes you unaware. For a madman, the world itself stands under accusation of madness. There is nothing more rational than the logic of an unsound mind. Victor takes comfort in the fact that he is aware that something is wrong with him.





	Dead and Lovely

**Author's Note:**

  * For [osheets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/osheets/gifts), [neurvelist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neurvelist/gifts).

> Thank you to Loran and Wynnesome, my wonderful betas who have dealt with my panic as well as my words, and to Imperium for cheer reading and holding my hand through writing the worst parts of this.
> 
> I promised to make you cry Osheets and Neurvelist, you're both welcome.

The problem with insanity is that it takes you unaware. For a madman, the world itself stands under accusation of madness. There is nothing more rational than the logic of an unsound mind. Victor takes comfort in the fact that he is aware that something is wrong with him. 

Stephen’s ghost is sitting next to him, garbed in his Sheriff’s outfit, as he has been for weeks now. He is a constant, a reminder of madness, of another world, of crimes, unforgivable. Victor has chosen redemption, privately. He has had a taste of absolute power and it tasted bitter and unfulfilling. Absolution is the only road not taken, so by the process of elimination, it must be the path he walks.

“Your desperation to hide your atrocities under this new mask of calm is laughable, Victor.” 

Victor has grown used to shutting his ears against the barbs, but it is morning; the clear sky and the clean air of the mountains do not care for circumvention of words. The dishonesty of non-answers would land heavily, disturbing the peace.

“I hide nothing,” Victor says.

“You’ve made lying into an art. Your _unspeakable_ acts are too terrible to stay unspoken; the murder will out.” The Sheriff speaks calmly, conversationally, as if every word out of his mouth is not an act of war. 

From atop the mountain, Victor can see his kingdom below; the view is stunning. The greenery calls to his earliest memories. It is home, mother. The mist that covers the lower hills is a brushstroke of a master artist. It is not the biggest kingdom he has built; neither is it the most impressive. It is beautiful, but the land doesn’t even belong to him anymore.

Latveria’s air is familiar and chiding. It enters his lungs reluctantly, unwilling to forgive him his abandonment, his founding of another, more beloved land -- or perhaps it is only the height that makes breathing difficult, and he’s being needlessly sentimental. 

Victor’s newly-made chest is naked to the wind. It is cold, and he has not been cold for so long. Letting himself freeze on his patio isn’t an act of self flagellation. It is only that the comfortable warmth inside has enabled his mind to stray in too many directions at once, like an anxious dog. Victor allows for no such weakness, not even here, in this safe haven. 

He is thinking, meditating if you will, on a problem. It is not a new problem. One could say it is the oldest problem the world has ever known. He is pondering the matter of power, and those who hold it -- and those held back by fear of it. He closes his eyes against the beauty and browses in memory.

_“You know what, old friend? I think you should be.”_

_Stephen kneels for him in the throne room. Stephen is with him when there is nothing left of existence. Victor remakes a world with Stephen’s breath on his neck. Stephen is begging under him. Stephen is yelling at him. Stephen is kissing his fingers. Stephen is murdered. Stephen betrays him._

Victor is back, focusing on the cold. It occurs to him that it could be an avoidance tactic, temperature as distraction, but he dismisses the thought and shudders his way to a clear mind once more. 

_He is on his throne, crafted of his essence, the world tree like an extension of his spine, holding up the world. Stephen is in the center of the room, looking at him, eyes judging him for horrors he has yet to commit._

_“Lies.” Stephen hisses._

This is wrong. 

Victor’s eyes snap open. He feels the same preposterous urge to check for curses that he has since the universe reformed. He debates with his ego for a moment and then decides that conversation is useless with the world’s most stubborn man, and checks for malignant magic once more. He finds nothing; he isn’t relieved. His recollections are tainted; the Stephen in them cruel and unforgiving. It is an insult to his memory.

“The living need not be remembered in memoriam. Have you found your way to acceptance? Have you finally recognized the falsehood of this world?”

“Why are you here, Stephen? Is it an admission of guilt that you seek? I have done worse things than murder.” 

“I don’t know whether to be wounded that you’d compare me to other victims, or to be overjoyed you’re finally speaking to me.” 

“Serial killers have victims. I do not.” 

Stephen snorts. 

“You’ve victimized entire universes.”

“I’ve _saved_ entire universes.” Victor corrects. 

“Did you? Or was that Reed Richards?”

Victor opens his mouth around a growl, but Stephen interrupts him, “It’s curious, isn’t it? When you made your world, it was broken and rebellious. When Richards made his, he took your advice and, like the gods of old, removed himself from it. He makes a better god than you ever did -- do you know why?”

Victor doesn’t volunteer encouragement. 

“Very well, I’ll tell you. The world believed itself fake when it was yours, and real now, that it is his, and isn’t that exactly what every god wishes to make of his kingdom?” Stephen’s voice is low, calculated in the injury it’s causing.

“It’s-”

“Man makes in his own image, Victor. A world besieged by inconsistencies, stabbed in its heart by the rejection of its citizens. A world gone mad is what you made. Look upon your kingdom and weep, for it is yourself that bleeds insanity.” 

This conversation was a mistake. 

Victor stands. There’s a choice to be made, and the making of it lives under his skin like an itch. At the corner of his eye, he can see the Sheriff smiling in satisfaction. Victor has found the problem to be solved; the architect of his misery. It is with this choice that this world will be written. 

Inside the lodge, it’s just as warm as it was when he left as the early morning sun shone. The night’s fire has burned to embers, but it still heats the room. The carpet is soft under his bare feet. He sinks his toes into it: a moment of indulgence. 

“Victor,” comes a mumble from the bed. “It is far too early to be awake.” 

Stephen’s words are slurred, his head still hidden under the green blanket, a lump of contentment and comfort. 

“Early morning meditation. The sun needed its greetings,” Victor says. Stephen grumbles in response, then pokes his salt-and-pepper head out of his cocoon to glare at Victor. 

“You’ve abandoned me for the sun? How villainous. Look at me! I’m cold.”

Victor’s heart feels, suddenly, three times its size, his chest can’t contain the amount of affection that fills it. The feeling wants to expand out of his mouth in sound, in laughter, in high pitched breaths, in words that should not be spoken. He breathes through the battle with his lungs and sets the feeling in his limbs; his fingers light up with green, like a novice. How ridiculous. He puts his hands in the pockets of his sleep pants. 

“How cozy…” says the ghost of Stephen from his left, and Victor’s heart sinks once more. He does not turn to look at him. “Was Susan this _domesticated_ for you as well? Or is this a newly installed feature in your fantasies?” 

Victor swallows, the warmth dissipating from him, stolen by the apparition. 

There is an audacity to the words, an accusation that’s absurd. This world is not his; he had no hand in its making. His fantasies play no part in this. Victor feels the ghost’s eyes rake over his perfect, unscarred face, and he looks at Stephen in his bed. _Domesticated_ is not a lie. He swallows his cancerous doubt and hides it deep in his chest, never to be looked upon again.

“How do you tell the difference when reality has curled up and died and you’ve made your dreams real?” the Sheriff asks.

Stephen looks at him from the bed, eyebrows knit together, but says nothing, just waits, ever patient. Victor makes himself move. It would be unforgivable to leave Stephen alone when he’s asked not to be. He can feel the apparition's eyes on his back as he walks, the icy cold of the grave. 

He slides under the sheets and Stephen gravitates towards his lap immediately, head burrowing closer despite his shivers and his protests about the lingering chill on Victor’s skin. Victor’s hand finds his hair; strokes it. Stephen’s sigh blows against his abdomen, warm, and for the moment unintentionally suggestive.

“Does it thrill you to take from me what I didn’t agree to give? He remembers nothing. He is innocent of your crimes. Does it make you feel powerful, Victor?” Stephen’s ghost hisses right into his ear. Victor does not flinch. 

“Stoicism in the face of atrocities has always been your specialty, hasn’t it, _God Emperor_?” the breath on his ear feels real; it’s solid and it sends shivers down his spine. It is a hateful impossibility. He ignores, ignores and ignores, and Stephen’s head rubs against him again, more deliberately this time.

“You reek of shame, he told you. I think he was wrong. Look at you. You feel no shame, Victor. Your feelings have abandoned you long ago.”

_Silence_. He screams inside his head, and Stephen’s ghost looks satisfied. 

“Is everything alright?” Stephen asks. Victor almost flinches at the sound of his voice. He reins in his wayward emotions and concentrates on the real Stephen; warm and welcoming and looking at him with concern and barely disguised want in his eyes. 

“Everything is well, beloved,” Victor lies.

“Then will you please stop making me wait?” 

They’ve waited so long already, years upon years of want that peaked in a perfect world that was never meant to last. A modern tragedy. He won’t make Stephen wait a second more. 

He ignores the hateful eyes on him, cups Stephen’s head in his hands, and leans in to kiss him. His eyes close involuntarily at the contact, the soft, new skin of his lips unused to touching another. It is a pleasure that was stolen from him for so long. His heart soars with it, the taste of Stephen on his tongue, knowing him so intimately. Taking his breath inside his lungs. An amalgamation of chemicals that mix in both of them together, a marriage of gasps and sighs.

The Stephen on his left snorts, a bitter, mean sound, that steals Victor’s euphoria and swallows it whole. Victor wants to scream.

He finds himself grabbing the back of Stephen’s neck harshly, biting his lip and savoring the moan that he earns. Stephen is pliant in his arms, willing to receive the tyranny of Victor’s affection as a fact of the universe, willing to be hurt by him as necessary payment for love.

“Stop poeticising it!” the Sheriff yells. “Burying me in an affectation of sentiment is not a replacement for emotions, _God Emperor_.” 

Victor squeezes his eyes against the words, and moves his bites to Stephen’s neck. Stephen sighs his name in a breath and Victor wants to save it inside his mind and replay it for eternity, overwrite the insults of the damned apparition of his Sheriff and the screams echoing their way inside his brain. He deserves this. This one thing that is perfect in an imperfect world. Stephen’s trembling hands on his chest, needy, wanting. He is warmth and Victor was promised an end to the cold. This is the promise fulfilled. 

“Richards was a very clever man,” the Sheriff hums. 

Victor pauses, confused. He reasons through the possible triggers for this line of thinking, and comes up wanting. 

“Undoing you took nothing but a warm body and a new face. It’s possibly the neatest solution to a problem anybody has ever come up with.” 

Victor is not rattled. His hands do not shake. His mind is his own. Words cannot unsettle him. He isn't. They don’t. They can’t.

He drags the sheets away from Stephen’s body and settles atop him, thighs on either side, his rightful place in this kingdom of flesh. He runs his hands, healthy and perfect, over Stephen’s chest, mapping his muscles. 

“Victor, what’s troubling you?” Stephen whispers and grasps one of Victor’s hands, takes it to his mouth and kisses the center of it. Victor’s mouth runs dry. 

“Nothing,” Victor lies, again. 

“That’s it. What’s one more for the pile of deceit? Maybe if you mount enough crimes against me, you could earn a commemorative plaque to display in your royal palace, my liege.” The Sheriff spits the title out like an insult, a polar opposite of Stephen’s soft lips on his skin.

Stephen frowns. He takes a breath to speak and then kisses up to Victor’s wrist instead, soothing the cuts his words would inflict, “I won’t force words out of you that you would not speak, Victor, but you have me, always. You needn’t be alone.”

Victor's heart bleeds. The Sheriff’s eyes burn a hole in his side, and he is never, ever alone. He buries his face in Stephen’s neck and kisses his skin, fully aware that his evasion is transparent. He wants Stephen so badly to be his. Untroubled. Preserved exactly as he is now; warm, besotted and _unaware_. 

The last few weeks have been an exercise in giving Stephen pleasure. Victor’s new mouth has made an exploration of every inch of Stephen’s skin, charted it and made a map of him, an obscene study of anatomy and rapture. 

Stephen gasps and holds onto his hair. It is, frankly, unfair of the universe that Stephen’s hands still shake, while Victor’s face is restored. Reed Richards was crueler in his reign as god than the world would ever know. 

“You’ve always been such a goddamn hypocrite, Victor,” Stephen’s ghost scoffs. “Have you been so desensitized to your own brand of cruelty that you see it as kindness? Rejoice, world, your savior is here, and he’s prepared the softest floor for you to kneel on at his feet.”

Victor kisses down Stephen’s chest and takes his soft cock in his mouth in lieu of screaming. Stephen sighs and sets a hand on Victor’s head. His noises are soft, his muscles relaxed, basking in his morning serenity and sustaining it with his gentle breathing. Victor closes his eyes and tastes him, strokes him with his tightly controlled hands and does not bite down when the Sheriff’s voice _tsks_ in his ear. Instead, he puts a hand on Stephen’s chest and monitors the changes in his breathing, an exercise in composure and ownership. 

“Oh Victor, even when you thought you owned me, I was not yours. I was never so drunk on your seed that I sold my sense of reasoning.” The words are spat into his ear like venom, right under where the real Stephen’s hand rests, caressing his hair; the juxtaposition of docility and barbarity makes his head spin. “Do you know what I said to Reed Richards when he came to dethrone you? I’ll tell you: I called him brother. I embraced him and invited him into our world, because I knew he was _better_.” 

Stephen is starting to harden in his mouth. Victor teases his crown with his tongue and savors the shiver he earns. He plays the experience in his head on a loop as he sucks: his tongue running along the slit of Stephen’s cock, Stephen’s thighs tensing and then a slight rise of his back from the bed, and the twitching of the hand in his hair, a quick intake of breath and then back to the start, like a mantra in technicolor. 

“Do you wonder if I had always planned on betraying you? What a coincidence that I found you just in time to save the world with you, is it not? What a brilliant twist of fate, that I was the one to live in your home for eight years, the only one to remember the world -- besides you, your majesty. What a... _coincidence_.” 

No. No, it’s not real. Stephen is not spitting ugly words into his ear. It isn’t real. He isn’t speaking. Stephen is underneath him, soft and pliant, his mouth breathing out little, hurt noises -- not words, not words, not words-- His cock is twitching in Victor’s mouth; Victor can taste him, salty and earthy, and that is unmistakably true. His hand grasps Stephen’s shaking one on his head and tangles their fingers together, an anchor in the storm of abuse.

Stephen whines his name and his hips thrust up into Victor’s mouth. He mutters an apology that only reaches the first syllable and then dies with a last gasp on his lips as he comes. Stephen pulls on Victor’s hair as he thrusts in small and stuttered movements with the waves of release. Victor swallows his essence into himself, greedy to claim, to own, any part of this man that he could. 

“Knowing that you are not worthy of any of it,” the Sheriff continues the thought. 

_I am_. He screams in his head. Stephen is his and will remain his. 

“Even more than you own me, Victor, I own you. I live in your head and I feed on your desires, on your faults, on the firing of neurons in your brain. I do not haunt you -- I possess you. It is you who belongs to me. You who cannot but carry me with you everywhere you go.” 

Victor closes his eyes against the onslaught of rage. It boils hot in his veins and expands out of him with bruising fingers on Stephen’s thighs; the canvas for his ever-present violence. The hateful eyes burn holes into him, but Stephen’s ghost holds his words. Victor hopes the apparition is terrified; he hopes it’s shuddering at his anger; he hopes the fire within him reaches the corners in his brain where the detestable tumor of memory resides and purges it in holy flame. 

Stephen whimpers again, more pain than pleasure colouring the sound. Victor forces his fingers to let go, watches the beginnings of bruises blooming on the pale skin and doesn’t feel regret. He swallows the taste of semen in his mouth and runs his tongue over his lips, and thinks. Stephen is looking at him, satiated and curious, his legs lying open on the bed, like he knows there’s no use to closing them yet. Victor runs his eyes over Stephen’s body, follows a line from his throat to his soft cock and watches goosebumps form in his wake, as if his gaze has physical weight caressing Stephen’s skin. 

There is a frayed thread tying the room together, binding the two of them together: on one end Victor’s bottomless pit of fury; on the other his patience and resolve. The distance between him and Stephen is the minuscule barrier keeping a disaster at bay, and Stephen’s throat is swallowing around hastening breaths, his eyes following Victor’s indecisive, hovering hands. He doesn’t ask about the sudden tightrope of tension. He takes what he’s given, like a good, loyal pet, like he was in another world, when they were one, alone, together. Another life. 

It’s almost enough to feed into Victor’s attempt at calm. 

“On your knees,” the Sheriff whispers, balancing his weight on the fragile peace. A memory. A mockery. 

Victor breaks the distance and rubs fingers against Stephen’s stretched hole, still wet from their night together. The edge of his steely rage stabs at his self restraint, so he waits no longer. He slips out of his sleep pants, grasps Stephen’s bruised thighs and fucks all the way into him with one brutal thrust of his hips. 

Stephen gasps and his hands grab Victor’s wrists on his thighs in a tight grip, but he makes no attempt at moving away. Victor takes a moment to savour the tightness and heat around his cock, and then starts moving in sharp, violent motions. He stands on the edge of a precipice. The feeling feeding into his soul with every act of violence upon Stephen is dangerously similar to the power-hunger of a god. He feels an act of holy retribution just under his skin, and he fears for Stephen for one gentle moment. Victor looks into Stephen’s eyes and sees the pleasure and the adrenaline in his pupils, sees the tension in his forearms, the flight response of a clever man, but no wisdom to flee. 

“He doesn’t know you, monster.” The Sheriff comments. Victor growls. His hips slam into Stephen and he bends them both until he can wrap a hand around Stephen’s neck. 

“You will not utter another word.” Victor hisses, and it’s illogical; it’s completely nonsensical. Stephen’s eyes widen and his hands grip Victor’s tightly, he opens his mouth to speak but Victor only squeezes his neck tighter, and thrusts right into his pleasure center. Stephen’s eyes roll white and his back arches off the bed, his soft cock twitches, and it must be torture. The oversensitivity must be burning through Stephen with every thrust, eating him inside out with pain and pleasure.

“You have invaded my senses. You have stepped where none have before and none shall after. My affection for you is consuming my cells like a virus. It leaves behind love to incubate inside me, an invasion tactic that you are not even aware of, are you? It’s a sickness. I want to keep you here, Stephen. Get out of my _head_.” Victor’s words are pouring out without his permission or thought. He’s whispering into Stephen’s skin and fucking into him like he might reach answers if he reaches deep enough inside. Stephen is panting, his hands grasping at Victor’s, but his body is still receiving him greedily. A contradiction of survival instincts and desire. 

“Once more unto the breach, dear friend, once more,” Stephen’s ghost says. In his mind, Victor sees the Sheriff’s insides spilling out onto the red dunes. He tightens his hands on Stephen’s neck. 

“Silence,” Victor growls.

“You can’t order the dead to behave, Victor.” 

He loves Stephen, he reminds himself. 

“Lies and masks to cover up depravity. You love nobody, Victor Von Doom.” 

“There is nothing I love more in the world!” 

“Then you love nothing.” The Sheriff answers. “You look at me and you want to climb inside me and live in my skin. You want me to fill my head with nothing but you. You want to erase my life from me because it makes it easier for you to have me, Victor--”

“I have the right to it!” Victor interrupts, screams, “Is there anything better to occupy you than me? Am I not the brightest, the most magnificent? Am I not the _sun_?” 

“You are a black hole.” The Sheriff replies, quietly. 

“Then I will swallow you.” Victor’s voice is dark, the edge of it sharp enough to cut. The solution is simple. He should have seen it before but love has blinded him to the obvious, made him ordinary. _Common_. It’s hateful. 

Stephen struggles underneath him. He is panicking. His hands are trying to pry Victor away, but he keeps alternating from Victor’s fingers to his wrists and losing the strength of his grip along the way. Victor’s thrusts sync with the squeezing of his hands. He closes his eyes and imagines he is a god once more, his actions monumental and inconsequential at the same time. Hearts, broken and mended in the span of a moment. Murders, reversible. 

Stephen starts thrashing underneath him; the desperate hunger for air of a dying man. His hole clenches around Victor’s cock with every breath he attempts. Victor moans. The heat around him is immense. He feels like he’s stealing Stephen’s warmth along with his life. Every anguished heave and tensing of muscles brings Victor closer to the edge. Stephen is wheezing and depowered by silence. Victor resolutely keeps his eyes clenched shut. 

This is a choice he is making, not preemptively, but a choice nonetheless. He has been made vulnerable by the lack of options. The Sheriff is silent; stunned by the violence, or simply uncaring for the fate of a man he once was, before he was robbed of being. 

Stephen is crying; Victor can feel his tears on his fingers. He opens his eyes. Stephen is murmuring pleas and Victor’s name. The tears are overflowing from his red-shot eyes. Victor thinks for one moment that he is beautiful like this; a portrait of Victor’s savagery, painted in blood and tears, and the desperation of a lover, betrayed. Stephen’s fingers let go of Victor’s hands and reach for his face, an attempt at evoking kindness. Victor squeezes tighter and knows that he is destined to burn. 

He closes the distance between them and kisses Stephen’s parted lips. It is, possibly, the last time he will get to do this. There is an ocean of regret in his future; he’s suffocating in the depth of it already. Victor loosens his grip and breathes air into Stephen’s deprived lungs. Stephen sobs. Victor steals his air and gives back to him in time with the thrusting of his hips. If Stephen is to die, then he will die with Victor’s air in his lungs, his cells nourished for the last time by the oxygen that Victor made. He will die as a part of Victor. It is fitting. Victor will own him in death as he did in life; both of them made one by an act of terror and binding. Victor breathes one last time into Stephen’s desperate mouth and then closes his fingers around his throat again. 

Stephen’s body starts losing all coordination, the thrashing becoming uncontrollable shaking. He clenches and unclenches around Victor’s cock, and the pleasure it brings is sinful; it moves through Victor’s veins and merges with his rage in a sacrilegious orgy of ruin. Victor fucks into him with abandon. He doesn’t close his eyes again; from here forth, he will bear witness to his violation because Stephen is alive yet, and he will miss him like a limb once he is no longer. 

Victor’s end comes as Stephen’s does. An irony. A tragedy. A horror larger than any Victor has ever beheld. He sobs his climax into the neck of a dead man and reminds himself that the dead have always held his heart with them. There is a relief in knowing it won’t be wandering on perilous ground anymore. 

He takes his hands away from Stephen’s neck, pulls out of him. He fixes his ruined hair and presses a kiss to the center of his forehead. He looks to his right. The Sheriff isn’t there. Victor looks around the room. Panic rising through his limbs, he feels himself start to shake. 

“Stephen.” Victor calls, breaking the silence of mourning, voice unrecognisably desperate. 

“Stephen, you can’t abandon me--” Victor whispers. There is still heat around his thighs, he flinches back violently when he realises it to be Stephen’s body, still warm around him. Oh god. “Stephen.” He calls again, a desolate whimper, “Please.” 

The room feels entirely too small to hold his horror. 

He wants to bang his head against a wall to knock the Sheriff back out. He wants to scream him into being. He wants to rip the barriers of time and logic and bring his world back. This is agony. His breath is coming fast and wheezing out of his chest, in sympathy with Stephen and his necklace of bruises. 

He’s never given Stephen any gifts, he thinks absurdly. It suddenly matters more than anything in the world. Stephen deserved to be courted; lavished in riches and pleasures. Victor looks at the dead thing on the bed and wonders when a person stops being a person and becomes a corpse. 

Death is an absence of loneliness, Victor thinks. 

“Please,” he whispers one last time into the empty room.

The silence is deafening.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Dead and Lovely](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22152979) by [AudioSilks (WhenasInSilks)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhenasInSilks/pseuds/AudioSilks)


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